When is a Paladin better to have in a fight than a Fighter?

[pogre]

Ever?

When you're playing the Wizard and the paladin has promised to protect you in the coming battle.

 

[Incenjucar]

It may even be worth it to get a paladin that can make wands or wonderous items that produce the bless weapon effect.

A party equipped with all Blessed weapons is going to slaughter evil en masse.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Looking over the Fist of Raziel PrC, I'm curious why you think so. Nothing in it seems to drastically change a PC's power level in comparison with a Paladin20.

Sorry, LP; that was a cut-and-paste error. That's supposed to be a cleric/paladin/FoR. My preferred build is a simple Pal2/Clr4/FoR10/PrC2. This was meant to gel with my overall point that the paladin is a fine level dip, but sucks as a 20-level class.

 

[Taneel BrightBlade]

I disagree a paladin a level 20 vs say black wyrm would be far more likely to walk away than a fighter of level 20

 

[Darth K'Trava]

It doesn't have to happen often. The Paladin will always be a capable fighter, but unlikely to outshine the fighter in pure damage-dealing (which is the fighter's forte). But the Paladin only has to make that crucial save and single-handedly save the day once in while to be worth his weight in gold pieces to a party. Plus that Aura of Courage thing is REAL handy against those enemies which radiate a fear effect (which targets what is usually the Fighter's weakest save).

-Dave

And the DM who forgets that paladins are immune to fear until the paladin's player just sits there and goes, "So? Is that ALL you've got?"

 

[Darth K'Trava]

I am ready for the word pokeX to die already.

::questioning tone:: Pika?
::more indignant:: Pika!

 

[Darth K'Trava]

Seems to me paladins do have two cool spells in their list, however, that aren't really caster-level dependent: bless weapon and holy sword. Too bad the rest of the list isn't so impressive.

Being able to ignore an evil creature's DR and auto-crit them can easily make up for the fighter's Greater Weapon Specialization.

Plus, Smite + Spirited Charge rocks on toast

But I agree with the earlier posts that the paladin's saving throws are the real benefit. My suggestion is to get the cloak of resistance rather than the cloak of Charisma.

Holy Sword: only a holdout until you get that Holy Avenger.

And I don't use smite on the first attack until I can "feel out" the monster to see if I want to throw Power Attack in there.

And take Improved Smiting to get extra smites. My 11th level paladin can smite 5(!) times a day!

And charge can work well with the mount.